The Unteleported Man Read online

  Theodoric Ferry's arm, at the shoulder-joint, came off. Revealing trailing conduits and minned compo­nents, those of the shoulder still functioning, those of the arm, deprived of power, now inert.

  "A sim," Dosker said. Seeing that Rachmael did not comprehend he said, "A simulacrum of Ferry that of course has no neurological system. So Ferry was never here." He tossed the arm away. "Naturally; why should a man of his stature risk himself? He's probably sitting in his demesne satellite orbiting Mars, viewing this through the sense-extensors of the sim." To the one-armed Ferry-construct he said harshly, "Are we in genuine contact with you, Ferry, through this? Or is it on homeo? I 'm just curious."

  The mouth of the Ferry simulacrum opened and it said, "I hear you, Dosker. Would you, as an act of hu­manitarian kindness, administer atropine to my two THL employees?"

  "It's being done," Dosker said. He walked over to Rachmael, then. "Well, our humble ship, on acute examination, seems never to have been graced by the presence of the chairman of the board of THL." He grinned shakily. "I feel cheated."

  But the offer made by Ferry via the simulacrum, Rachmael realized. That had been genuine.

  Dosker said, "Let's go to Luna, now. As your ad­visor I'm telling you — " He put his hand, gripped harshly, on Rachmael's wrist. "Wake up. Those two will be all right, once the atropine is administered; they won't be killed and we'll release them in their THL vehicle — minus its field, of course. You and I will go on to Luna, to the Omphalos, as if nothing happened. Or if you won't I'll use the map the sim gave me; I'm taking the Omphalos out into 'tween space where THL can't tail her, even if you don't want me to."

  "But," Rachmael said woodenly, "something did happen. An offer was made."

  "That offer," Dosker said, "proves that THL is willing to sacrifice a great deal to keep you from your eighteen-year trip to Fomalhaut for a look at Whale's Mouth. And — " He eyed Rachmael. "Yet that makes you less interested in getting the Omphalos out into unchartered space between planets where Ferry's trackers can't — "

  I could save the Omphalos, Rachmael thought. But the man beside him was correct; this meant of course that he had to go on: Ferry had removed the block, had proved the need of the eighteen-year flight.

  "But the deep-sleep components," he said.

  "Just get me to her," Dosker said quietly, patiently. "Okay, Rachmael ben Applebaum? Will you do that?" The controlled and very professional voice penetrated; Rachmael nodded. "I want the locus from you, not from the chart that sim gave me; I've decided I'm not touching that. I'm waiting for you, Rachmael, for you to decide."

  "Yes," Rachmael said, then, and walked stiffly to the ship's 3-D Lunar map with its trailing arm; he seated himself and began to fix the locus for the hard-eyed, dark, Lies Incorporated ultra-experienced pilot.

  4

  At the Fox's Lair, the minute French restaurant in downtown San Diego, the maitre d' glanced at the name which Rachmael ben Applebaum had jotted down on the sheet with its fancy, undulating, pseudo-living letterhead and said, "Yes. Mr. Applebaum. It is — " He examined his wristwatch. "Now eight o'clock." A line of well-cloaked people waited; it was always this way on crowded Terra: any restaurant, even the bad ones, were overfilled each night from five o'clock on, and this was hardly a mediocre restaurant, let alone an outright bad one. "Genet," the maitre d' called to a waitress wearing the lace stockings and partial jacket-vest combination now popular: it left one breast, the right, exposed, and its nipple was elegantly capped by a Swiss ornament with many minned parts; the ornament, shaped like a large gold pencil eraser, played semi-classical music and lit up in a series of attractive shifting light-patterns which focused on the floor ahead of her, lighting her way so that she could pass among the closely placed tiny tables of the restaurant.

  "Yes, Gaspar," the girl said, with a toss of her blonde, high-piled hair.

  "Escort Mr. Applebaum to table twenty-two," the maitre d' told her, and ignored, with stoic, glacial in­difference, the outrage among those customers lined up wearily ahead of Rachmael.

  "I don't want to — " Rachmael began, but the maitre d' cut him off.

  "All arranged. She is waiting at twenty-two," and, in the maitre d's voice, everything was conveyed: full knowledge of an intricate erotic relationship which — alas — did not, at least as yet, exist.

  Rachmael followed Genet, with her light-emanating useful Swiss-made nipple-assist, through the darkness, the noise of people eating in jammed proximity, bolting their meals with the weight of guilt hunching them, get­ting done and aside so that those waiting could be served before the Fox's Lair, at two a.m., closed its kitchens... we are really pressed tight to one another, he thought, and then, all at once, Genet halted, turned; the nipple cap now radiated a soft, delightful and warm pale red aura which revealed, seated at table twenty-two, Freya Holm.

  Seating himself opposite her, Rachmael said, "You don't light up."

  "I could. And play the Blue Danube simul­taneously." She smiled; in the darkness — the waitress had gone on, now — the dark-haired girl's eyes glowed. Before her rested a split of Buena Vista chablis, vintage 2002, one of the great, rare treats of the restaurant, and exceeding expensive; Rachmael wondered who would pick up the tab for this twelve-year-old Califor­nia wine; lord knew he would have liked to, but — he reflexively touched his wallet. Freya noticed.

  "Don't worry. Matson Glazer-Holliday owns this res­taurant. There will be a tab for a mere six poscreds. For one peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich." She laughed, her dark eyes dancing in the reflected light from barely illuminated overhead Japanese lanterns. "Does this place intimidate you?" she asked him, then.

  "No. I'm just generally tense." For six days now the Omphalos had been lost — and even to him. Perhaps even to Matson. It could well be — necessary for security purposes — that only Al Dosker, at the multi-stage console of the ship's controls, knew where she had gone. For Rachmael, however, it had been psychologically devastating to watch the Omphalos blast out into the limitless darkness: Ferry had been right — the Omphalos had been the sine qua non of Applebaum Enterprise; without her nothing remained.

  But at least this way she might return; or more ac­curately, he eventually might be taken, by Lies In­corporated, by high-velocity flapple to her, allowed to see, board her, again, to begin his eighteen-year trip. And, the other way —

  "Don't dwell on Ferry's offer," Freya said softly. She nodded to the waitress, who placed a solidstem but chilled wine glass before Rachmael; he automatically, obediently, poured himself a trace of the 2002 Buena Vista white, tasted it; kept himself from taking more; he merely nodded in compliment to the wine, tried to make it appear that he was accustomed to such an outrage­ously, almost divinely penetrating bouquet and flavor. It made absurd everything he had drunk his life long.

  "I'm not thinking of it," he said to Freya. Not, he thought, in view of what you have — or are supposed to have — in your purse.

  Her large black leather mailpouch-style purse rested on the table beside her, within reach of his fingers.

  "The components," Freya said softly, "are in the purse in a simulated gold round container marked Eter­nity of Sexual Potency Fragrance #54, a routine con­tinental scent; anyone going through my purse would expect to find it. There are twelve components, all super-min, of course. Beneath the inner lid. On India paper, on the reverse of the label, is a wiring diagram. I will rise to my feet in a moment and go to the powder room; after a few seconds — you must sit quietly, Rach­mael, because it is about a seventy-thirty possibility that THL agents are monitoring us, either directly as patrons or by instrument — you must sit; then, when I don't return immediately, you fidget, you try to attract Genet's attention, to order some dinner for yourself or at least — and this is vital — obtain the menu."

  He nodded, listening intently.

  "She will notice you and give you a menu; it is quite stiff and large, since it contains the wine list. You will place it on the table so that it covers my
purse."

  Rachmael said, "And I accidentally knock your purse to the floor, and the contents spill out, and in gathering them up I — "

  "Are you insane?" Quietly she said, "You cover the purse. There is a strip of titanium within the righthand overleaf of the menu. The container of scent has a titanium-tropic ambulation-circuit; it will within two seconds register the presence of the strip and will rotate itself out of my purse, which I've left open; it will travel across the underside of the menu. The strip is at the bot­tom, where your right hand with complete naturalness will be resting as you hold what has been deliberately made up an awkward, stiff menu. When it touches the titanium strip the container will emit a weak charge, about ten volts; you will feel this galvanization and you will then, with your four fingers, take hold of the con­tainer, detach it from the titanium strip to which it has tropically adhered, drop it from the underside of the menu onto your lap. And then, with your other hand, you will shift the container from your lap into your pocket." She rose. "I'll be back within six minutes. Goodbye. And good luck."

  He watched her go.

  And then, as he sat there, he realized that he had to rise, too; had to act — the job of transferring the deep-sleep components obtained for him from the blackmarket was difficult and delicate, because Theodoric Ferry, ever since Lies Incorporated had taken out his satellite and its crew, its simulacrum of Ferry himself, had kept total surveillance over everything Rachmael had done; the ultimate in technological and personnel resources of Trails of Hoffman Limited had been brought into play, motivated now by Theodoric's per­sonal animus.

  What had been a remote and impersonal conflict had become once more, he reflected, that which it had always been for his father: a deeply human, immediate matter. A struggle which, at last, had brought his father's death and the disintegration of the organiza­tion.

  Thinking this, Rachmael began dutifully to fidget, then rose, began hunting for the girl with the light-emanating, gay music resounding, Swiss nipple.

  "A menu, sir?" Genet stood before him, holding out the great, wonderfully printed and engraved, in fact em­bossed, menu; he thanked her, accepted it humbly, returned to his table with the pleasant tunes of Johann Strauss in his ears.

  The menu, the size of an old-fashioned antique disc record album, easily covered Freya's purse. He sat holding it open, reading the wine list, and especially the prices. Good god! It cost a fortune even for a split of good wine, here. And for a fifth of a three-year-old generic white —

  All the retail establishments such as the Fox's Lair were exploiting Terra's overpopulation; people who had waited three hours to get in here to eat and drink would pay these prices — by then they had, psychologically, no choice.

  A weak electric shock made his right hand quiver; the circular container of miniaturized deep-sleep compo­nents had already made physical contact with him and, with his fingers, he pried it, clam-like, loose from its grip, its tropism; he dropped it into his lap, felt its weight.

  As directed, he then reached for it with his left hand, to transfer it to his cloak pocket...

  "Sorry — oops." A busboy, a robot, carrying a loaded, chest-high tray of dishes, had bumped him, making him totter on his chair. People everywhere, those rising, those seating themselves, the robot busboys clearing, the waitresses with their lights and tunes everywhere... confused, Rachmael reseated himself, reached for the container on his lap.

  It was gone.

  Fallen to the floor? In disbelief he peered down, saw his shoes, the table legs, a discarded match folder. No round gold-like container.

  They had gotten it. It was they who had sent the "busboy." And now it, too, with its load of dishes, had vanished in the general confusion.

  Defeated, he sat vacantly staring. And then, at last, from the split of wine, he poured himself a second drink, lifted the glass as if in toast: a toast to the suc­cess, admitted and accepted, of the invisible extensions of THL around him that had, in the crucial instant, in­tervened, deprived him of what he needed essentially in order to leave the Sol system with the big Omphalos.

  It did not matter now whether he made contact with Dosker aboard her; lacking the components it was in­sanity to leave.

  Freya returned, seated herself across from him, smiled "All okay?"

  Leadenly, he said, "They stopped us. Dead." For now, anyhow, he thought. But it's not finished yet.

  He drank, his heart laboring, the delicate, expensive, delicious, and utterly superfluous wine — the wine of at least temporary utter defeat.

  On the TV screen, Omar Jones, President of Newcolonizedland, highest official in residence at the great modular settlement at Whale's Mouth, said jovially, "Well, you folks back home, all bunched together there in those little boxes you live in — we greet you, wish you luck." The familiar, round, pleasant face beamed its smile of warmth. "And we're just wonderin', folks, when you all are going to team up with us and join us here at Newcolonizedland. Eh?" ****start****He cupped his ear. As if, Rachmael thought, it were a two-way transmission. But this was illusion. This was a video tape sent across in signal-form by way of von Einem's Telpor nexus at Schweinfort, New Whole Germany. By, through, the good offices of the UN's network of Earth satellites, relayed to TV sets throughout Terra.

  Aloud, Rachmael said, "Sorry, President Omar Jones, of Newcolonizedland, Whale's Mouth." I'll visit you, he thought, but my own way. Not by a von Einem Telpor operating for five poscreds at one of Trails of Hoffman's retail outlets... so it'll be a little while; in fact, he thought, I'd guess you, President Jones, will be dead by the time I arrive.

  Although after the defeat at the Fox's Lair —

  They, the opposition had in effect severed him from his source of support from Lies Incorporated. He had sat across from their rep, pretty, dark-haired Freya Holm, drunk vintage wine with her, chatted, laughed. But when it came time to transfer vital components from Lies Incorporated across a five-inch space to him...

  The vidphone in the miniscule bedroom-cubby of his conapt said Pwannnnnnk! Indicating that someone desired to contact him.

  Shutting off the jolly face of President Omar Jones of Newcolonizedland, Whale's Mouth, he went to the vid­phone, lifted the receiver.

  On its gray, undersized screen there formed the features of Matson Glazer-Holliday. "Mr. ben Apple­baum," Matson said.

  "What can we do?" Rachmael said, feeling the weight of their loss. "In fact those people are probably monitoring this — " "

  "Oh yes; we register a tap on this vidline." Matson nodded, but he did not seem nonplussed. "We know they're not only monitoring this call but recording it, both aud and vid. However, my message to you is brief, and they're welcome to it. Contact the master circuit of your local public Xerox-spool library."

  "And then?" Rachmael asked.

  "Do research," Matson Glazer-Holliday said care­fully. "Into the original discovery of Whale's Mouth. The first unmanned data-receptors, recorders and trans­mitters which were traveled from the Sol system, years ago, to the Fomalhaut system; in fact, back in the twen­tieth century."

  Rachmael said, "But why — "

  "And we'll be in touch," Matson said briskly. "Goodbye. And glad to have — " He eyed Rachmael. "Don't let that little incident at the restaurant get to you. It's routine. I assure you." He mock-saluted, and then the image on the tiny colorless — the Vidphone Cor­poration of Wes-Dem provided minimal service, and, as a public utility licensed by the UN, got away with it — the image died.

  Rachmael, bewildered, hung up the aud receiver.

  The records of the original unmanned monitors which had been dispatched to the Fomalhaut system years ago were public record; what could exist there that would be of value? Nevertheless he dialed the local branch of the New New York Xerox-spool public library.

  "Send to my apt," he said, "the abstract, the com­prehensive material available, on the initial scouting of the Fomalhaut system." By those now old-fashioned constructs which George Hoffman had utilized �
�� by which the habitable planet Whale's Mouth had been discovered.

  Presently a robot runner appeared at his door with a variety of spools. Rachmael seated himself at his scan­ner, inserted the first spool, noting that it was marked A General Survey of the Fomalhaut Unmanned Inter-system Vehicle Reports, Shorter Version, by someone named G.S. Purdy.

  For two hours he ran the spool. It showed that sun coming nearer and nearer, then the planets, one by one and disappointing, bitterly so, until now number nine bloomed into view; and all at once —

  No more barren rocks, unblunted mountains. No air­less, germless, hygienic void with methane as gas or crystallized at greater astronomical units from the sun. Suddenly he saw a swaying and undulating, blue-green frieze, and this had caused Dr. von Einem to trot out his Telpor equipment, to set up the direct link between this world and Terra. This plum-ripe landscape had gotten Trails of Hoffman interested commercially — and had written mene, mene for Applebaum Enterprise.

  The last vid monitor-reading was fifteen years old. Since then direct contact via teleportation gear had made such ancient hardware obsolete. And hence the original unmanned monitors, in orbit around Fomal­haut —

  Had what? Been abandoned, according to author Purdy. Their batteries turned off by remote instruct; they still, presumably, circled the sun within the orbit of Whale's Mouth.

  They were still there.

  And their batteries, having been off all these years, had conserved, not expended, energy. And they were of the advanced liquid-helium III type.

  Was this what Matson had wanted him to know?

  Returning to the reference spool he ran it, ran it, again and again, until he had the datum at last. The most sophisticated vid monitor belonged to Vidphone Corporation of Wes-Dem. They would know if it, called Prince Albert B-y, was still in orbit around Fomalhaut.

  He started toward his vidphone, then stopped. After all, it was tapped. So instead he left his conapt, left the huge building entirely, joined a ped-runnel until he spied a public phonebooth.